Europe's Refugee Opportunity

The ongoing exodus from Syria and other war-torn countries was long in the making, easy to foresee, and eminently manageable. And now, with fear-mongering nativists peddling a vision that would divide and destroy the EU, a comprehensive strategy to end the panic and stop the unnecessary human suffering cannot wait.

ROME – Europe’s so-called refugee crisis should never have become an emergency. Accommodating one million asylum-seekers should not be a huge challenge for the European Union – an area with 500 million citizens that welcomes more than three million immigrants every year. Unfortunately, the lack of a coordinated response is transforming a manageable problem into an acute political crisis – one that, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rightly warned, could destroy the EU.

Most EU member states are selfishly focusing on their own interests. This pits them against one another and has precipitated panic, putting refugees in even greater peril. A smart, comprehensive plan would calm the fears. Instead, Europe has preferred to search for scapegoats – and Greece is the latest to be targeted for blame.

Greece has been accused of not doing enough to process and house refugees. And yet, even if the country were not crippled by economic crisis, it would be unreasonable to expect a single small country to bear the burden alone – especially in a year when more than 800,000 refugees are expected to pass through its territory. This is a European and global problem, not solely a Greek problem.

Before we give in to Marine Le Pen , can we not learn from what happened after WWII, in Japan in particular? Japan in 1945 and 1946 gave great hope but two years later with Eastern Europe under Soviet control and Mao consolidating Communist rule in China, our Japan model was badly troubled! A General Strike was avoided only by MacArthur putting his reputation on the line to stop it. Acts of sabotage on the railways were counted by the thousand: the body of the President of the Japanese railways was found on the tracks. It was far from the Japan we have come to know.
The US Policy of limited economic improvement in Japan was changed and Truman offered to share America's know-how in Point Four of his 1949 Inaugural Address.
The US had brought over a small group of engineers to set up an effective system of communications needed so the Japanese could hear what the Occupation Authorities had to say. According to Homer Sarasohn, Head of the Civil Communications Section, (CCS) Industry Division, who I knew, they sent word to MacArthur that they had the know-how that Truman offered to share. Other Heads of Sections opposed a give-away as too generous. MacArthur had them debate the matter in front of him and Sarasohn never forgot MacArthur pointing the stem of his pipe at him and saying, “Go! Do it!’ As we know, they did!
The teaching It led to the Japanese electronics industry and the Asian economic revolutions!
Let the displaced Syrians and others be accommodated in Middle Eastern camps, supported by Europe and the US, where they can improve their English, learn another language if they wish and computer skills and turn themselves into people who will be wanted everywhere, including through the Middle East!

"Already the German economy is growing significantly faster as a result of its willingness to accept Syrian refugees".

On what evidence doers Ms Bonino make that claim?

Part of the problem which Europe faces in the ongoing debate about how to deal with the current crisis is assertions of opinions or perceptions (mainly by politicians or bureaucrats) as if they were unassailable facts. I have a rather strong suspicion that this is yet another!

Why just 500,000 asylum-seekers a year? Why not 34 or 49,521 or 730,000 or my favorite number 7,777,777 asylum-seekers per year? Juggling arbitrary numbers and quotas might be a favorite EU politicians pastime but it rarely addresses and solves problems. Europe realy has a fefugee opportunity: to get rid of politicians like Ms.Bonino, preferably by making them refugees.

I agree that the refugee crisis has been a long time in the coming and that this issue should never have become an emergency. Had a set of policies such as this been put in place say five years ago, the refugee problem would be non-existent and we would have all the time in the world to sit down and discuss the UK's identity problems. But that would imply a degree of foresight that the parlamentarians clearly do not possess nor aspire to. The real problem then is that we have a parliament full of politicains whose purpose in life is to maintain a status quo that will stir up as little dust as possible. The reason we now have a crisis is because this tired old bunch of impotent overpaid elites is not capable of managing a crisis let alone anticipate one and acting accordingly, before it grows to size. It is a management problem. They're not up to it.

Mmmm...
I believe you should let Merkel handle this, gracefully, as she already does does....

You are a member of the European Council and you are telling us to tell our leaders? What do you think citizens are, the Council's plaything? If we had the power to press our "leaders," we wouldn't have had leaders. This is your (technocrat & politician) theatre/game and you may manage to smash it! Maybe you can't play together!

Only if and after the UNHCR/WFP are generously funded by all EU-28 countries and the international community at large should any resettlement programs, on a voluntary basis, be discussed. The message to the Syrian refugees must be: yes, we are willing and able to help you to survive, to school your children and to provide basis medical care, but in principle all European societies are only able and willing to offer resettlement programs on a very limited and selective basis. A considerable number of European countries are economically fragile, suffer from high unemployment and large pockets of poverty. Even in the richest countries the socio-economic bottom-third of the population is poor in their social context.

Mrs. Bonino writes largely nonsens, but the idea of Eurobonds is interesting from an Italian. The country is over-indebted and its future pension and healthcare obligations will require even more public debt. Hence, she is looking for a door into Eurozone debt mutualization. Cutting entitlements, or raising taxes would be politically too inconvenient. An EZB-credit card, without spending limit, would be nicer.

(1) First question is whether she worked as a foreign minister under Berlusconi? If so, I suspect her. (2) Astonishingly she asserts 6 countermeasures at the same time. It is unreasonable. (3) Among them assertion about gateway countries are the most dubious. All those countries have their own problems such as Turkey who trains so-called benign Muslims who come back to Sysra becoming ISIS abruptly. (4) BTW. What is the meaning of OPPORTUNITY? Meaningless.

Coming from a politician, this article does not surprise me a bit. If it was not for the likes of Mrs Bonino, the current state of affairs in the EU and Syria would not have happened in the first place.

"For starters, the EU should commit to absorbing at least 500,000 asylum-seekers a year"
WHY??????
The rest of the article is not even worth commenting. Let just ask one more question:
When are all of these current and former high level EU clerks going to finally get it? We just don't want these immigrants? The question that all these supposed leaders should be asking is: whether we as Europeans want to dramatically change our societies by changing their ethnic and religious composition by accepting these immigrants? We are the citizens and if this was a real democracy we should have had the word on the issue. Unfortunately we live in quasi democracy where our leaders make decisions, which would have never got them elected on the first place. As result these “Leaders” are now involved in a massive info war against their own citizens, hoping to bring them on their side, so that we can keep pretending that the decisions taken in conference rooms throughout the Berlaymont are actually reflection of existing attitudes among the citizens. This is all going to end up with a bang not a whimper, probably sooner rather than later.

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